The Safe Exam Browser can work with Moodle to control what a student can do when in Moodle. To use it, it must be enabled in Settings > Site administration > Development > Experimental > Experimental settings. This adds the choice 'Require Safe Exam Browser' to the 'Browser security' field on the quiz settings form.

The Safe Exam Browser is offered under a Mozilla Public License and uses C++ and JavaScript.

Contents

Features

Safe Exam Browser is a customised web browser, available for Windows and Mac Operating Systems, that must be downloaded and installed on the computer that the student uses to attempt the quiz. The restrictions placed on students are similar to those in pop-up window case, but because Safe Exam Browser is software running on the student's computer, it can do a much more effective job of restricting their actions. If you select this option:

Students will only be able to attempt the quiz if they are using Safe Exam Browser.

The browser window will be fullscreen (without any navigation elements).

Chrome OS and Safe Exam Browser

Safe Exam Browser is only available for Windows and Mac. Chromebooks run a particular variant of Linux, so SEB is not avaialble there. It would be a lot of work to make a version of SEB for Chromebooks. In order to lock everything down, SEB has to do a lot of operating-system-specific things. This is why it is only avaiable for certain systems.

See this article about three ways of using chromebooks for student assessments: Chromebooks are a secure platform for administering student assessments, and when setup properly, these devices meet K-12 education testing standards. With Chromebooks, you can disable students’ access to browse the web during an exam in addition to disabling external storage, screenshots, and the ability to print.